Workout Wednesday: Cross(fit) My Heart, I'm Actually Dying

You'd think I'd get bored with a wide-open schedule and no reason to leave my apartment... but I don't want to leave my apartment. It's hot. I've got a cute, cuddly puppy on my lap. I want to watch old episodes of Parks & Rec. So even though I have valiant plans to go to my favorite kickboxing class at the gym, sometimes I just don't.

I was starting to feel really bad about not working out very hard - mostly because I had to see myself in those multi-angle Target dressing room mirrors and I could pretty much see every bag of microwave popcorn and every bucket of movie theater popcorn. All I eat is popcorn. And I need to be photo ready by the wedding on August 9th!!! Oh noez!

I thought back to a crossfit workout that my super fit college athlete sister Brooke invited me to do with her one day when we were both at my parents house. We did 10 burpees, 9 squats, 8 pushups and 7 situps, starting on the minute every minute for 10 minutes. If you finished in 40 seconds, you had 20 seconds of rest until the next round started, 50 seconds/10 second rest, etc. It was INSANE!!! I was literally dripping sweat and ripping off layers of clothes. I was sore for seriously a week. Yet, it was over in 10 minutes and I saw a difference in my fitness level that week at the gym, even after just one session.

So when I saw a crossfit-style workout called Plank-a-thon (below, original link), I thought - "Hey. I could do that. At home. While watching Parks & Rec. As Glen Coco tries to attack my flying ponytail." We went for it.

I use a free app called Gymboss - you can create intervals of any length or intensity. For this one I did 30 seconds of work/10 seconds of rest for 24 rounds, so you do the 12 exercises twice. My plan is to do this workout every day until I can do the entire 30 seconds solid (I'm so weak I often can only do 15-20 seconds during the second round), then mix up my crossfit workouts.

 

It's rough - I'm not going to sugar coat it for you. But you kind of love it. And you get out of it what you put in. Obviously if you're getting tunnel vision and lightheadedness, you better calm it down, but push yourself and you'll see results pretty quickly.

I have pinned tons of workouts, and I've used BodyrockTV (daily workouts posted, but beware of sweaty, almost naked people!) to create crossfit workouts, but really you can do whatever you want! Pick a few natural movement, bodyweight exercises you like or need to target a problem area (squats for butt, pushups for arms, plank for abs, etc) and set up an interval timer. My mom does Insanity every day (wow right?!) and loves it, so I think I may give that a try this winter when I'm in a workout rut and lazy and cold. :)

Anybody else do crossfit at home or in a gym? Inspire me!